Picking Up The Peices
by LilyTheNinjaGirl
Summary: A Oneshot. The entire team is broken after they watched Shredder murder their beloved father and Sensei. April is having a hard time with losing her second father figure. But when a purple banded brother comes to her for help with dealing with the loss, she comes up with a strange analogy to help him. Maybe the team can be whole again after all. No Apritello, they are just friends


April felt like her heart had been torn in two. After everything she and her turtle brothers and Casey had been through...

First was the shock when the Triceratons had landed. She had been in the shellraiser, leaning over Donnie's arm. Casey was saying how he could totally take down a dinosaur. " _How wrong he was,_ " she thought. She always knew Casey was going to take on something to big for him and get in trouble. He had numerous times before, and she knew that some of the turtles (or at least Donnie) thought he shouldn't be participating in a ninja's fight anyway. Not that that would stop Casey Jones.

Second was when she had learned of the Triceraton's plan. They wanted to get rid of the Kranng. She didn't blame them. She did too. She understood that anger the big dinosaurs must have felt towards the squishy little brains. The same anger she felt every minute of very day. They had kidnapped multiple of her family members and subjected them to horrible experiments, not to mention the experiments they had performed on countless innocent humans and animals.

She felt almost contaminated to know that she carried some of their blood in her veins. Like it was a disease...

At least she had these unknown and unexplained powers to help her fight the Kraang with. But she knew that the powers weren't a coincidence. The Kraang must have some powers that they had been hiding, reluctant to use. And that scared her.

She had stood next to her friends and family, and had watched as one by one they had been taken down. She was just a beginning kunoichi! Sure, she had been getting better, but she was nowhere near skilled enough to be of that much use. She still felt that guilt as it clawed on her heart. If only she had been able to do something!

April had thought Master Splinter was crazy when he suggested alliance with the Shredder. She had thought that he was too evil, too sick and twisted to be trusted. She had been right...

Nothing amounted to what she saw Shredder do. NOTHING. The look on her beloved Sensei's face as her went down, just before he could press the button that would save the lives of so many innocent people. And he had lost his, because of the Shredder.

His brown eyes had been lit with panic, with fear and desperation, that she could only imagine was the same fear and desperation he had felt when Tang Shen had fallen by Shredder's blade right in front of him. His son's faces as they turned just in time to watch their father fall. Ocean blue, deep brown, emerald green, and baby blue. And their faces...their horrified faces.

They were broken. Mikey had been sobbing helplessly, hugging the still warm body of his father, not caring if it soaked his shell with blood. Leo had cracked. The oldest brother who did such a great job of hiding his emotion behind a solid mask of indifference had let himself fall apart, tears streaming as he cradled his father's head in his hands.

Donnie had stared in shock, unable to believe it, running all of the possibilities through his head. He had checked for a pulse. And checked again, and checked again, and checked again, until he had finally given up and let his hand fall to his side. Raphael, just held his father's hand. His green eyes brimmed with tears that he would not let fall. He believed that his father would want him to be stronger and tougher than ever, because his brothers needed him.

April had knelt down beside Donatello, not daring to breathe. She didn't have time to utter even a word of comfort before the portal had open and sucked every thing on earth, living and not living, including Master Splinter's body, into its vortex. They had climbed onto the space ship seconds before it was too late.

She had left her turtle brothers, dragging Casey behind her, the moment that they had determined that the Fugitoid was a friend and that they were safe. They needed time alone. She understood that. She had needed time alone after she had lost her father, and even then, she did have the slight hope that they could fix him. He had been mutated, not slain.

April had disappeared into her room and cried. Even now, hours after and late in the night, she was crying. She couldn't help it. All of the emotions bombarding her were just too much.

She was lying on her stomach on her bed in the spaceship. Salty tears stained her cheeks and her nose was stuffed up horribly. She heard the door creak open. She was too exhausted from crying so long to look up and see who her intruder was. The light footsteps meant that it was not Casey, who was clumsy and loud, and not the Fugitoid, who's metal feet clanked on the ground. It had to be one of the turtles.

"April, you okay?" a soft voice asked. She smiled in spite of herself. She pulled herself into a sitting position and looked at the turtle who sat down on the end of her bed.

"No Donnie, I'm really not," she said quietly. "But how are you holding up? I mean, if I'm this upset I can't imagine how much pain you must be in right now. He didn't raise me all my life, even if it feels like it sometimes." She noticed Donnie's hands were clenched into fists.

"I...I don't know," he whispered. "We've fallen apart, April. Leo isn't talking to anyone. He hasn't said a thing since Splinter died. He's blaming himself, of course. And Mikey did what you did. I guess he's still crying. Raph's just kinda been moping around and breaking stuff. He's entirely lost... And I don't know how to fix this! I can't, I-"

"Donnie, it's not your job to fix everything," April said, cutting him off.

"But it IS!" Donnie wailed. He couldn't hold the tears any longer, and they poured down his cheeks. "It's always been my job to fix us! It's what I do best!"

"Donatello, look at me," April commanded, "This is your family we're talking about. And you guys have been hurt. Emotionally. You can't just go in and change out a few gears, and replace the engine and refill the gas tank!"

"It hurts," Donnie sniffed. "I've never felt anything like this before. I just can't stop thinking about it, and I know I'll never get over it, and I shouldn't because it would be wrong to. But, he wouldn't want us to fall apart like this, but I can't help it, and I don't know what to do anymore."

"I know it hurts, Donnie," April said soothingly. She reached over and pulled him into a hug. "I know it hurts. I lost my mother. I guess it's a lot easier for me, because I never knew her. Every day, I avoid thinking about her, and every time I do it ruins whatever I'm doing. And I'll never stop hurting. It's like I'm walking around with-"

"A piece of you missing?" Donnie finished for her. She nodded and placed her hands on his shoulders. She stared into his chocolate brown eyes.

"Exactly. A piece is missing. When something like that happens, it seems like because you lost that one piece, your entire puzzle of life is ruined. But it isn't. The puzzle is just shattered. So you pick up the pieces. And I'll help you guys do that. Just because a piece is missing doesn't mean we can't build the puzzle. And even though that piece will always be missing, you can learn to over look it. It will always be precious in your memories."

"Thank you, April," Donnie sighed. "I guess we'd better start picking up those puzzle pieces. We got a lot of them scattered all over the place."

"Let's start with the most important three," April agreed. She stood up. "I have no doubt that together, we can fix this puzzle. You'll see."

 **A/N: I had to build on a small scene I had in one of my fics, Amnesia! I got this idea after watching a really funny video by a couple of my favorite YouTubers. Go look up "The Puzzle' by Rhett and Link on YouTube if you want to watch it. As always, thank you for reading! Leave a review if you liked it!**


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